Seventh Samurai

I think that the main thing that I took away from this film was that samurai is both singular and plural.
The film is 3.5 hours long....that's really long...like epic long. The length gave a more realistic perspective of what was actually happening in the battle (with a title like that you knew there had to be a battle), but it seemed to drag on for me. It really is comprable to a western epic and even though I haven't seen The Magnificent Seven, I could really see how the film could easily be adapted. Even though I usually don't enjoy films like this I sort of respect them. The action and characters are more realistic than some of the strict black-and-white-morality films. Although, I do have to say that I wish I knew more about the culture behind the film because it was quite obvious in some places that we just weren't getting it because we were americans. That said, the characters were still fairly easy to relate to.
The film was made in 1954, but the cinematography was really ahead of its time and superb for that era. Paul made the comment that he thought it had been filmed later because of all the tracking shots.

Fanny & Alexander

We were all a little resistant to watching this film because of the length (it's 5 hours long). But once we started it didn't seem that long.
The characters seem so real and Bergman does an excellent job of creating a relationship between them and the audience. Every time something bad happens to one of the characters it feels like it is happening to someone close to you. When the priest came on the scene, I just got a creepy vibe and I wanted to kick his ass.
I don't understand why Fanny is one of the title characters. She has a miniscule part and maybe two lines. She was adorable though.

Tesis

Me llamo Ángela. Me van a matar. [English Tagline: My name is Angela. They're going to kill me.]
This is by far the best foreign horror film that I've ever seen. Granted, the only other foreign horror film that I've seen was "Anatomy", which was ok in a spoofy sort of way. But Tesis was a genuine thriller. I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but even I wasn't completely sure who the murderer was until it was revealed.
The really awesome thing about this film is that it is all about watching films and it makes the audience feel like they are just as bad as the "villain". The heroine of the film, Ángela, is doing her film school thesis, hence the title, on violence in the media. At the end of the film it shows a news show that is showing a tape of the events of the murders. Everyone is watching avidly in morbid curiosity, even as the news program states their incredulism that these kinds of scenes have an audience. An overall point of the film is that we are all, to some extent, sick.
I have to agree somewhat to this message. During the film there is a part where Ángela is watching a tape of someone being murdered. At first all we can hear is the sound and we aren't sure what is really going on. I admit that I was burning with curiosity until they actually showed what was on the tape, then I was just sick.
Another thing that I really like about this film is that Fele Martinez, who plays Enrique Goded in La Mala Educacion, played a geeky film nerd!
I want to have his babies.

A Very Long Engagement

Ok, I admit that sometimes, not very often, I'm in the mood for a chick-flick (this desire isn't blocked by any Y-chromosomes). Yesterday I watched this film in one of these moods and was pleasantly surprised that it was more than that. It has some honest-to-goodness violence in it along with some really sweet lovey-dovey crap (don't worry, I'm not talking domestic violence, it's war/murder stuff).
What this film did make me think about is love. A lot of cinematic representations are crap. I don't believe in love at first sight and I have serious doubts about the validity of soul mates or destiny. But, one thing that I'm not too sure about is spiritual connections and intuition. Twins who feel when the each other are in pain or married couples who know when the other has died all have anecdotal evidence to support them. It is a fact that the longer and the closer two people associate with each other the more in tune with each other they are. They can read eachothers' emotions and know what they are about to say. But does that extend across distances? My sister and I have had instances where we've been thinking about the other one just before they call us or we answer a question (via e-mail) before the other has actually asked it. Is that a spiritual connection?

Chung King Express

You really have to look at this as two separate movies, even though they share the same space and time. That said, I don't like the first cop's concept of love. I have never believed in love at first sight and I don't think that what he felt, at the end, for the woman in the raincoat was really love. He was extremely funny though. It's amazing to me that anyone can remember enough to be able to tell you who was in their fourth grade class, let alone know how to get in touch with them. The whole drug-dealing plotline w/ the woman in the raincoat didn't seem very believable to me. It seems an incredible risk to me that she would load that many people up w/ drugs and not have a better way of controlling them. She does take their passports, but they don't need them at that point. They have the drugs to sell and they have the money that she has already given to them. If I were in charge of some drug mules, I would at least not pay them up front.
The second story was much better. That guy should never have been a cop and it was an excellent idea to have him take over the food stand. However, I don't know if he actually stayed there. She wanted to travel and see the world and he was more of a stay at home type. Do you think that she used him as a sort of home base after that? I liked her hair better when it was short.